is nibbled and sucked from end to end till all the grains are got out. It looks awkward enough: but what is to be done? Surrendering such a vegetable from considerations of grace is not to be thought of.

After dinner we walked in the blooming garden till summoned within doors by callers. My host had already discovered my taste for rambling, and determined to make me happy during my short visit by driving me about the country. He liked nothing better himself. His historical researches had stored his memory with all the traditions of the valley, of the state, and, I rather think, of the whole of New-England. I find the entries in my journal of this and the next two days the most copious of any during my travels.

Mr. Bancroft drove me to Amherst this afternoon. He explained to me the construction of the bridge we passed, which is of a remarkably cheap, simple, and safe kind for a wooden one. He pointed out to me the seats and arrangements of the villages we passed through, and amused and interested me with many a tale of the old Indian wars. He surprised me by the light he threw on the philosophy of society in the United States; a light drawn from history, and shed into all the present relations of races and parties to each other. I had before been pleased with what I knew of the spirit of Mr. Bancroft's History of the United States, which, however, had not then extended beyond the first volume. now perceived that he was well qualified, in more ways than one, for his arduous task.

We mounted the steep hill on which Amherst stands, and stopped before the red brick buildings of the college. When the horse was disposed of, Mr. Bancroft left me to look at the glorious view, while he went in search of some one who would be our guide about the college. In a minute he beckoned me in, with a smile of great delight, and conducted me into the lecture-room where Professor Hitchcock was lecturing. In front of the lecturer was a large number of students, and on either hand as many as forty or fifty girls. These girls were from a neighbouring school, and from the houses of the farmers and mechanics of the village. The students appeared quite as attentive as if they had had the room to themselves. We found that the admission of girls to such lectures as they could understand (this was on geology) was a practice of some years' standing, and that no evil had been found to result from it. It was a gladdening sight,

testifying both to the simplicity of manners and the eager ness for education. I doubt whether such a spectacle is to be seen out of New-England.

The professor showed us the Turkey Tracks, the great curiosity of the place; and distinct and gigantic indeed they were, deeply impressed in the imbedded stone. Professor Hitchcock's name is well known among geologists from his highly-praised work, A Report on the Geology, Mineralogy, Botany, and Zoology of Massachusetts. We ascended to the observatory, whence we saw a splendid variety of the view I had been admiring all day, and we pronounced this college an enviable residence.

It is a Presbyterian college, and is flourishing, as Presbyterian colleges of New-England do, under the zeal of professors who are not content with delivering courses of lectures, but who work with the students, as much like companions as teachers. The institution had been at work only ten years, and at this time it contained two hundred and forty under-graduates, a greater number than any in the state, except, perhaps, Harvard.

The next day was a busy one. We were called away from gazing from the balcony after breakfast, the carriage being at the door. Two more carriages joined us in the village, and we proceeded in the direction of Mount Holyoke. Our road lay through rich unfenced cornfields and meadows where the mowers were busy. There was a great contrast between the agriculture here and in other parts of the state. Here an annual inundation spares much of the toil of the tiller. It seems as if little more were necessary than to throw in the seed and reap the produce; while, in less-favoured regions, the farmer may be seen ploughing round the rocks which protrude from the soil, and bestowing infinite pains on his stony fields. The carriages conveyed us a good way up the far-famed hill. When it became too steep for the horses, we alighted, and found the ascent easy enough. There are rude but convenient ladders, broad and strong, at difficult turns of the path, and large stones and roots of trees afford a firm footing in the intervals. The most wayward imagination could not conjure up the idea of danger, and children may be led to the top in perfect safety.

On the summit is a building which affords shelter in case of rain, and lemonade and toddy in case of thirst. There is a fine platform of rock on which the traveller may rest him

self while he looks around over a space of sixty miles in almost every direction. The vailey is the most attractive object, the full river coiling through the meadows, and the spires of village churches being clustered at intervals along its banks; but smokes rise on the hillsides, from the Green Mountains in the north to the fading distance beyond Springfield in the south. To the east the view extends nearly to New-Haven (Connecticut), seventy miles off. Mount Holyoke is eleven hundred feet above the river.

While I was absorbed in the contemplation of this landscape I was tapped on the shoulder. When I turned a shipmate stood smiling behind me. She highly enjoyed the odd meeting on this pinnacle, and so did we. The face of a pleasant shipmate is welcome everywhere, but particularly in a scene which contrasts so strongly with those in which we have lived together, as a mountain-top with the cabin of a ship. Some person who loves contrast has entered a remarkable set of names in the album on Mount Holyoke as having just visited the spot, Hannah More, Lord Byron, Martin Luther, &c.

We returned by a shorter, but equally pretty road to dinner; and presently after, as we were not at all tired, we set off again for the Sugarloaf, ten miles up the valley. We had a warm ride and a laborious scramble up the Sugarloaf; but we were rewarded by a view which I think finer than the one we saw in the morning, though not so various. It commanded the whole valley with its entire circle of hills. White dots of buildings on the hillsides spoke of civilization; Amherst, with its red buildings, glowed in the sun; and the river below was of a dark gray, presenting a perfect reflection of its fringed banks, of the ox-team on the margin, and of boys fishing among the reeds. Smokes rose where brush was burning, indicating the foundation of new settlements. In one of these places which was pointed out to me an accident had happened the preceding spring, which affords another hint of what the hearts of emigrant mothers have sometimes to bear. A child of two years old wandered away one afternoon from its parents' side, and was missing when the day's work was done. The family and neighbours were out in the woods for hours with torches, but they only lost their own way without discovering the little one. the morning it was found, at a considerable distance from home, lying under a bush as if asleep. It was dead, how

In

ever: the cold of the night had seized it, and it was quite stiff.

The sun set as we returned homeward with all speed, having to dress for an evening party. While the bright glow was still lingering in the valley, and the sky was beginning to melt from crimson to the pale seagreen of evening, I saw something sailing in the air like a glistening golden balloon. I called the attention of my party to it just in time. It burst in a broad flash and shower of green fire. It was the most splendid meteor I ever saw. We pitied a quiet-looking couple whom we met jogging along in a dearborn, and whose backs had, of course, been turned to the spectacle. They must have wondered at the staring and commotion among our party. I saw an unusual number of falling-stars before we reached home.

The parties, on all the three evenings when I was at Northampton, were like the village parties throughout NewEngland. There was an over proportion of ladies, almost all of whom were pretty and all well dressed. There was a good deal of party spirit among the gentlemen, and great complaints of religious bigotry from the ladies. One inhabitant of the place, the son of a Unitarian clergyman, was going to leave it, chiefly on account, he told me, of the treatment his family received from their Calvinistic neighbours. While he was at home they got on pretty well; but he had to go from home sometimes, and could not bear to leave his wife to such treatment as she met with in his absence. This was the worst case I heard of; but instances of a bigotry nearly as outrageous reminded me painfully of similar cases of pious cruelty at home. The manners towards strangers in these social meetings are perfectly courteous, gay, and friendly. I had frequent occasion to wonder why a foreign Unitarian was esteemed so much less dangerous a person than a native.

There was endless amusement to me in observing village manners and ways of thinking. Sometimes I had to wait for explanations of what passed before my eyes, finding myself wholly at fault. At other times I was charmed with the upright simplicity which villagers not only exhibit at home, but carry out with them into the world.

In one Massachusetts village a large party was invited to meet me. At teatime I was busily engaged in conversation with a friend, when the teatray was brought to me by a

young person in a plain white gown. After I had helped myself, she still stood just before me for a long while, and was perpetually returning. Again and again I refused more tea, but she still came. Her pertinacity was afterward explained. It was a young lady of the village who wished to see me, and knew that I was going away the next day. She had called on the lady of the house in the afternoon, and begged permission to come in a plain gown as a waiter. She was, of course, invited as a guest, but she would not accept the invitation, and she was allowed to follow her own fancy.

In another village I became acquainted with one of its most useful residents, the schoolmaster, who has a passion for music, and is organist of a church. It was delightful to hear him revelling in his own music, pouring his soul out over his organ. He has been to Rome, and indulged himself with listening to the Miserere. He told me that two monks whom he met in Italy, before reaching Rome, saw him reading his Bible, with a Commentary lying before him. In his own words,

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They told me I had better give over that. 'Give over what?' says I. Why, reading your Bible, with that book to help you.' 'Why shouldn't I read in my own Bible?' says I. Because the pope won't like it,' said they. • In my humble opinion,' says I, 'it is far from plain what the pope has to do with my duty and way of improving myself. It's no wish of mine, I'm sure, to speak disrespectfully of the pope, or to interfere with what he chooses to do in his own sphere; but I must save my own soul in the way I think right.' Well, they talked about the Inquisition, and would fain have made me believe I was doing what was very unsafe; so, after a good deal more argument, I settled with myself what I would do. When I got to Rome I put away the Commentary, thinking that that way of reading was not necessary, and might be left to another time; but I went on reading my Bible as usual.

"Well: when Passion Week came I took care to see all that was going forward, and I was in the great square when the pope came out to give the blessing. The square was as full as ever it could hold, and I stood near the middle of it. I found all the people were about to go down on their knees. Now, you know, it is against my principles. altogether to go down on my kness before the pope or any